The events of past months, during which the deaths of a number of unarmed black men around the country at the hands of police officers have been highlighted in the media and have erupted into the public consciousness, have been both devastating and—paradoxically — heartening to me.

They are devastating not only because they reveal the callousness with which African-American lives are sometimes dispensed with by law enforcement personnel, but also because of the failure of the justice system in our country to condemn and to punish that callousness.

It has become clear to anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear what some people have been trying to tell us for some time now: Black and brown lives matter less than white lives in our society, there is a vast discrepancy between the way law enforcement and the justice system in our country treat black and brown people compared with the treatment of white people.

These events are also heartening, however, because while they are not something unusual or anomalous in America – the wanton killing of black men by law enforcement in our country has been practically a matter of routine for a long time – in these last weeks a public outcry has arisen calling for an end to these killings, for justice and for accountability from those who commit them.

Let me make it clear at this point that I am a white person, and I am writing from a white person’s perspective.

I have been personally outraged by the images and reports of these recent killings that I have seen in the media. On Saturday, Dec. 13, I happened to be in New York City and joined in the march there that drew tens of thousands of people calling for justice. I was, as I said, heartened and encouraged by the diverse cross-section of American society that made up those who participated. It was the kind of demonstration of solidarity that has been needed for quite a long time, and which has the potential to actually bring about change.

However, some of the chants repeated by the crowd that caught my attention and have caused me to reflect a little more deeply were, “How do you spell racist? N-Y-P-D!” and “Hey,Hey! Ho, Ho! These racists cops have got to go!” Not that I disagree with those statements on their face — the NYPD is a racist organization, and cops who act out by gratuitously killing black people do indeed have to go. But the police are not at the root of the problem. I do not believe that the NYPD is any more racist than is American society in general.

The sad and tragic truth is that America was built on explicitly racist foundations from the very beginning. Let’s face it — without the genocide of the indigenous inhabitants and the outright theft of their lands, and without the legacy of several hundred years of slavery of African people, the United States would not have become the economic, political, and military power that it did. Further, over several centuries, white Americans have, by and large, benefited from the inequitable distribution of the benefits of that racist system, to the point where they are privileged above their black and brown fellow citizens in manifold ways. That is the meaning of racism — our participation in a system that privileges us without opposing, questioning or even acknowledging the injustice of that system.

While there have been reforms to the system that have ameliorated some of the most blatant practices of that racism, those social and economic foundations remain and continue to restrict access to social justice and economic opportunity in the United States. The recent killings of unarmed black men by police are just the most recent and most visible examples of the way the system has been taking the lives of people of color all along.

The question for us white people is, “What is it going to take for us to wake up to this systemic injustice and to work with people of color to change it?” If the unnecessary, wanton, killing of people of color with impunity by those charged with maintaining public order and safety doesn’t do it, what will?

So what should we do? To begin with, we need to join our brothers and sisters of color in demanding that anyone committing such killing be held accountable, that they be tried, convicted and punished. Second, we must insist that police departments begin to take responsibility for purging their ranks of the kinds of people who commit them. The “code of silence” by which police too often fail to speak out against fellow officers who are unfit to serve hurts all law enforcement officials by causing the public to paint them all with the same brush. Mistrust of police by the public is the greatest obstacle they face to their ability to do their job, causing fear on both sides and making tragic, violent encounters all the more likely. Third, we must stop tolerating inequitable treatment of people of color by the law enforcement and justice systems, we must speak out against it and advocate for laws and policies which do not allow or perpetuate it.

Finally, we must make the intentional effort to create and take part in opportunities to build community across racial lines, to reach out beyond our comfort zones and expand the circle of our relationships. As people of faith, we need to act on our belief that all people are our kin, children of God created in God’s image, people whom God loves unconditionally, and whom we also need to love as God loves. We need to acknowledge the grief and the suffering of brothers and sisters who live under the oppression of a system which, by blaming them for not being subservient enough, further devalues them.

God is just, and will not allow injustice to continue indefinitely. There will come a time of reckoning. That is the message of the biblical prophets. So as white people, we also have a self-interest in seeing that justice is done for our brown and black brothers and sisters, and the sooner the better.

A
foul and vulgar piece of filth written by a base pathetic individual
for no other reason than his own self-aggrandizement at the cost of
tearing down the greatest nation of all. Speaking as one of the
uncountable millions overflowing with pride in and love for this
country, these sorts of pathetic mewlings masquerade as
imitation-righteousness in an intellectually lazy attempt to foment some
sort of undeserved mass-guilt for the purpose of the DESTRUCTION of
that pride and love, not to mention delegitimizing the glory and beauty
of the American way of life. America is the GREATEST beacon of
individual liberty and freedom, and YES, JUSTICE, the world has ever
known, and contrary to the lies of this author, it ALWAYS HAS BEEN, yes,
since its founding.
No
matter how hard your hateful ilk try to establish a link, there IS NO
“systemic” denial of freedom and justice in America today. We are a
nation of law and order and rights and freedoms. Individual liberties
means that there will always be individual conflicts but our original
charter of laws still affords us all the best means of addressing these.

Make
no mistake, the vast majority of your countrymen are NOT fooled – this
sort of whining will always be called out for what it is: a naked
attempt to guilt-trip us into allowing yet even MORE of our natural
liberties be erased. We will always resist it.

Where is your moral compass pointing? What are your social values? Hark will explore faith, morals, ethics and character at the intersection of religion ethics, culture, politics, media, science, education, economics and philosophy. At times this blog will alert readers to breaking news and trends. At times it will attempt to look more deeply into intriguing subjects. Hark means to listen attentively, and we will, as readers talk back to the news.